1 0:00:00 --> 0:00:07 There we are. And then Julie will edit that so that we can share that link with everybody. 2 0:00:08 --> 0:00:13 All right, well let's get this show on the road. It's 7.32. Hi everybody, I'm Charles Corvus, 3 0:00:13 --> 0:00:18 Australasian passion provocateur. For those of you who might not know me, I'm wearing my 4 0:00:18 --> 0:00:27 red jacket for passion. Tonight's a special foam meeting, FOAM, standing for fighters opposing 5 0:00:27 --> 0:00:32 autocratic maniacs. We are Warriors for Freedom, generally on this group, but there's a special 6 0:00:32 --> 0:00:39 occasion that we're recording because we have Jerry Brady, formerly Dr. Jerry Brady, although 7 0:00:39 --> 0:00:44 he's still a doctor, who came from many years back and he's going to tell us about that. And now, 8 0:00:45 --> 0:00:51 somewhat of an expert in the areas of money and finance, and he publishes a newsletter that he's 9 0:00:51 --> 0:00:59 going to tell us about. And one of the benefits of this whole scamdemic, known as COVID, is that I 10 0:00:59 --> 0:01:05 have met some wonderful people, including a number of people on this call, including Jerry Brady, 11 0:01:05 --> 0:01:11 from Fighting for Freedom against the COVID scam. And I say to all of you, look at all the wonderful 12 0:01:11 --> 0:01:17 people you've met. And at the party that we referred to earlier that Julie and I were at 13 0:01:17 --> 0:01:23 just recently, we were having the conversation that the people who are on our side, 14 0:01:24 --> 0:01:30 we seem to be creating deeper relationships with people who are driven by principle rather than by 15 0:01:30 --> 0:01:36 comfort. So I think it's worth observing which friends you've lost, but which friends you have 16 0:01:36 --> 0:01:42 gained and the depth of that friendship. So welcome to this presentation, those who are live and those 17 0:01:42 --> 0:01:48 who are watching a recording. Jerry, a number of people have asked us a question, that's why we put 18 0:01:48 --> 0:01:55 this on and thank you for doing this. They say, should I sell my $2 million house? And if I do, 19 0:01:55 --> 0:02:00 and I say, then what are you going to do with $2 million cash or $2 million in money? And Jerry's 20 0:02:00 --> 0:02:05 educating us on the difference between cash and money. And it's a great question. And so Jerry has 21 0:02:05 --> 0:02:10 agreed to come along. So Jerry, tell us about you and your journey. And let's talk about, 22 0:02:10 --> 0:02:15 let's talk about money and what to do in this strange world we live in. 23 0:02:17 --> 0:02:21 Well, thanks for that, Charles. I hope you can hear me nice and clear. I'd like to share the 24 0:02:21 --> 0:02:28 screen. So can you allow me to do that? Yes, I can do that now. Okay. Well, I'll just do that. 25 0:02:31 --> 0:02:38 And I'll just put this to a slideshow. Let me see. There we go. You should be seeing a slideshow, 26 0:02:38 --> 0:02:45 I hope. Is that correct? You seen that on your screen? Okay. Yep. Money, money supply and wealth 27 0:02:45 --> 0:02:53 is the title of the talk tonight. So we've got a lot of ground to cover. I'd suggest you get a 28 0:02:53 --> 0:02:58 pencil and paper and take some notes as we go. I'm going to move through a lot of information 29 0:02:58 --> 0:03:07 fairly quickly in the next 30 to 35 minutes. So I'm Dr. Jerry Brady, I'm a GP, or was a GP, 30 0:03:07 --> 0:03:12 I had 30 years of clinical experience in the frontline of medicine, mainly in adult medicine. 31 0:03:12 --> 0:03:19 I got bored with it and did a lot of other things. I started a biotechnology company in 1990, 32 0:03:19 --> 0:03:26 which specialised in genetic engineering and the large scale fermentation of genetically engineered 33 0:03:26 --> 0:03:35 bacteria. So I was at the very forefront of the world of genetic engineering and biotechnology at 34 0:03:35 --> 0:03:39 the time, that company became quite a large company. And then I started another company, 35 0:03:39 --> 0:03:45 which was a company dedicated to mapping the internet. And we became the first company to 36 0:03:45 --> 0:03:51 map the internet successfully. We beat everybody, including IBM, Microsoft, you name it. And then 37 0:03:52 --> 0:04:00 I was able to retire from medicine in 2007. I was aged 53 because my company was, my biotech 38 0:04:00 --> 0:04:05 company was purchased by its biggest shareholder. And then I went to live in Europe. And then 39 0:04:05 --> 0:04:10 eventually I started a finance and economics newspaper called Boom Finance and Economics. 40 0:04:11 --> 0:04:18 And that newspaper is aimed at and read by the chief central bankers of the world, the deputy 41 0:04:18 --> 0:04:25 governor, the deputy governors, the chief advisors, the chief economic advisors, the deputy advisors, 42 0:04:25 --> 0:04:32 and professors of economics, professors of finance, fund managers, very famous, some of 43 0:04:32 --> 0:04:37 them very famous fund managers. So I have an amazing readers list. If you looked at the list, 44 0:04:37 --> 0:04:44 it's quite stunning even to me. I write an editorial every week based on the week's events. 45 0:04:44 --> 0:04:50 It's an ongoing letter to my readers. It comes out every Sunday morning. It's my basic, my sermon to 46 0:04:50 --> 0:04:57 them. And I'm trying to steer the world of finance to a realization of what the problem is that we've 47 0:04:57 --> 0:05:03 got and how to fix it. I'm also the founder of the COVID Daily newspaper you'll see on the screen 48 0:05:03 --> 0:05:11 there, where I have a team of people sending me articles all over the world. And I publish those 49 0:05:11 --> 0:05:18 articles every day on a daily basis. So that's I recommend you all go to that link every day. 50 0:05:19 --> 0:05:28 So next slide. This is the disclaimer slide. This is all education. It's not investment advice. 51 0:05:29 --> 0:05:36 So I'm not giving any investment advice. I don't do that for a living. I'm retired, fully retired. 52 0:05:37 --> 0:05:41 There's a disclaimer there. I won't read it all out. But it's basically a fairly broad disclaimer, 53 0:05:41 --> 0:05:46 disclosure, and a fair use notice. You can all get access to this slideshow later. So 54 0:05:47 --> 0:05:53 you can read all of this later. Basically, it's an education talk. So let's start with money. 55 0:05:55 --> 0:06:03 Money is a token. You can interview PhDs in economics, Nobel Prize winners in economics, 56 0:06:03 --> 0:06:07 and they'll have a very, very sketchy idea about what money is and what banking is. 57 0:06:10 --> 0:06:16 So it's a little specialized area all of its own. And it's not dealt with very well at all by the 58 0:06:16 --> 0:06:22 world of economics. You can go to a website produced by the Royal Reserve Bank of Australia. 59 0:06:22 --> 0:06:28 It's just called it all the what is money website is quite a good website and explains what money is 60 0:06:28 --> 0:06:33 in fairly simple language. So it I just cut some words from that it says it's a reliable way to 61 0:06:33 --> 0:06:40 pay or be paid as a way to quote prices and as a way to store value over time. In other words, 62 0:06:40 --> 0:06:46 it's widely accepted means of payment, widely accepted means of payment. It can be a unit of 63 0:06:46 --> 0:06:53 count, and it can be a store of value. So these are the three attributes that make up a fairly 64 0:06:53 --> 0:07:02 well used around the world. But there's more to money than those three things. So what do we need 65 0:07:02 --> 0:07:07 money? Well, money has value because people trust that it has value and that it will continue to 66 0:07:07 --> 0:07:13 have value. It's all about trust. That's what money is all about. So therefore, it's all about 67 0:07:13 --> 0:07:21 actually all about contractual agreements between individuals and also between companies between 68 0:07:21 --> 0:07:25 individuals and companies and between governments and between individuals and corporations with 69 0:07:25 --> 0:07:32 government. So it's all about trust. It says there that history shows us this trust is sometimes 70 0:07:32 --> 0:07:38 broken. That is true. So why do people keep on using it? Well, firstly, we talk about 71 0:07:38 --> 0:07:42 trust being broken. And I'll give you an example of that Germany, for instance, which is a very 72 0:07:42 --> 0:07:48 powerful economy in Europe, has had six official currencies in the last 100 years. They've had a 73 0:07:48 --> 0:07:53 lot of breakage of trust in regard to their currencies, and they've had to renew that trust 74 0:07:53 --> 0:08:00 and create new currencies. And that's pretty normal. I don't think that's abnormal. But why 75 0:08:00 --> 0:08:05 do people keep using money? Well, the answer is that it's incredibly useful for facilitating trade, 76 0:08:06 --> 0:08:11 which in turn leads to higher living standards. So what it actually generates is a thing called 77 0:08:11 --> 0:08:18 economic complexity. This is a really important thing to understand. The headline of change now 78 0:08:18 --> 0:08:25 is not just a token, it's a token of trust. Now we've got to talk about legal tender. What is 79 0:08:25 --> 0:08:31 legal tender? This is a very important term to understand. Legal tender is a form of payment 80 0:08:31 --> 0:08:37 recognised by the legal system, such that when it's offered or tendered in payment of a debt, 81 0:08:37 --> 0:08:44 the debt is legally discharged. The credit or the creditor cannot refuse a legal tender 82 0:08:44 --> 0:08:50 under the law. Okay, that's very important point. Bank notes are legal tender in Australia under 83 0:08:50 --> 0:08:55 the Reserve Bank Act of 1959 and coins are legal tender under the Currency Act of 1965. 84 0:08:56 --> 0:09:01 The system of money with a currency of a country is not backed by a physical commodity, 85 0:09:01 --> 0:09:06 e.g. gold, but by a directive from a government that makes it legal is called a fiat system. 86 0:09:07 --> 0:09:14 We have fiat systems in place in all nations of the world now. And why is that? It's because it 87 0:09:14 --> 0:09:20 works well. We've tried just about everything else. So let's have another look at this term 88 0:09:20 --> 0:09:25 legal tender. We can look at a one dollar note. Of course, there is no one dollar note. 89 0:09:25 --> 0:09:31 Just get this off the internet as an example note of an Australian dollar. You'll see this is an 90 0:09:31 --> 0:09:37 older Australian dollar mock-up because it says at the top, the Commonwealth of Australia. 91 0:09:38 --> 0:09:41 And down the bottom, you've got two signatures. You've got the signature of the governor of the 92 0:09:41 --> 0:09:46 Reserve Bank of Australia and you've got the signature of the secretary to the treasury. 93 0:09:47 --> 0:09:56 So in our country, the money is being issued, the cash is being issued jointly by the treasury and 94 0:09:56 --> 0:10:01 by the central bank. That's not the case all over the world. There's different circumstances 95 0:10:01 --> 0:10:06 in different countries. If you read the thing below that, it says legal tender throughout the 96 0:10:06 --> 0:10:09 Commonwealth of Australia and the territories of the Commonwealth. 97 0:10:11 --> 0:10:16 Now, this is another more, a later version that I pulled off the net. And you'll see down the 98 0:10:16 --> 0:10:22 bottom, it says governor Reserve Bank of Australia again with Bernie Fraser's name. It says secretary 99 0:10:22 --> 0:10:28 to the treasury again. So it's a jointly issued note. And this time it says this Australian note 100 0:10:28 --> 0:10:33 is legal tender throughout Australia and its territories. And you'll see at the top of the 101 0:10:33 --> 0:10:39 note, the word Australia, not Commonwealth anymore, becomes Australia. I've got a 102 0:10:41 --> 0:10:48 $20 note in front of me. Oh, I can't read it now. I'm going to go on to that. I can't read it 103 0:10:48 --> 0:10:53 anymore. But they've changed the words slightly again. Now it's only Australia. It doesn't 104 0:10:53 --> 0:10:57 include its territories. So they've dropped the word territories from the latest version. 105 0:10:57 --> 0:11:04 Okay, we all sort of know most of that. So most of us have heard those sort of things. So 106 0:11:04 --> 0:11:07 let's get on to the interesting part of what's the history of money. 107 0:11:09 --> 0:11:16 Well, money goes through a history, goes through a pretty clear series of changes. 108 0:11:16 --> 0:11:22 Initially, there's barter when there's no money. In barter, there's just an exchange of goods or 109 0:11:22 --> 0:11:28 services between people, for instance, in a tribe or a village. And I always say this lasts for about 110 0:11:28 --> 0:11:34 one second or maybe two seconds doesn't last long, it might last a minute. Okay. So barter really 111 0:11:34 --> 0:11:42 doesn't last. And the reason is because credit arrives in a heartbeat. Why does credit arise so 112 0:11:42 --> 0:11:47 quickly? Well, it's easy to do. It's an exchange promises. This is a really critical thing to 113 0:11:47 --> 0:11:54 understand that credit money is an exchange promises. So the lawyers would recognize straight 114 0:11:54 --> 0:12:02 away, there's a contractual element there. And then tokens get invented to represent these promises. 115 0:12:03 --> 0:12:09 And tokens are really promissory notes. So they're just written or representative 116 0:12:11 --> 0:12:16 tokens that can represent the exchange of promises in the village or the tribe or whatever. 117 0:12:18 --> 0:12:24 It then evolves pretty quickly to tribal acceptance and law, where the tribal chiefs get together and 118 0:12:24 --> 0:12:32 say, well, we'll accept this token here, this bag of salt or this seashell or this silver coin 119 0:12:32 --> 0:12:44 or whatever. We'll pass, in effect, a resolution and accept this and make it legal. So in other 120 0:12:44 --> 0:12:51 words, they render it legality. And then you get the most important element in money, you get general 121 0:12:51 --> 0:12:57 acceptance. So these concepts are really easy to understand and how they evolve. So general 122 0:12:57 --> 0:13:03 acceptance is the key element of money. And then on the screen, we've got along with 123 0:13:04 --> 0:13:07 fungibility. We finally got a difficult word to understand fungibility. 124 0:13:07 --> 0:13:18 Fungibility is something money should always have. And this refers to equality, it allows one thing 125 0:13:18 --> 0:13:24 to be exchanged, substituted or returned for another thing, but always under the assumption 126 0:13:24 --> 0:13:29 of equivalent value. So units of money should be interchangeable with each other. So this is 127 0:13:29 --> 0:13:36 fungibility. It's very important. It's got to be portable and durable, recognizable, and generally 128 0:13:36 --> 0:13:43 accepted. So these are principles that occur at a tribal level. The tribes can decide this. 129 0:13:43 --> 0:13:47 One tribe could have seashells and the other tribe over the other side of the mountain 130 0:13:47 --> 0:13:53 could have bags of salt. It's not until they trade with each other that then other arrangements have 131 0:13:53 --> 0:14:01 to be made. So these tribal agreements, initially they start between individuals, they have an 132 0:14:01 --> 0:14:07 exchange of promises. Those promises are usually contract limited in time. So the period of the 133 0:14:07 --> 0:14:14 contract is pretty clear. Like one tribal person will say, you come and help me repair my roof 134 0:14:14 --> 0:14:22 this week. I'll come next week and help you reap your wheat crop. And that contract is agreed to 135 0:14:22 --> 0:14:27 and they've got a two week time frame. It could be much longer, but they've got a time frame. It's 136 0:14:27 --> 0:14:32 limited in time and they agree. And one person comes and helps with the roof and the other person 137 0:14:33 --> 0:14:40 goes and helps with the crop. And then the contract is completed and fulfilled. 138 0:14:41 --> 0:14:48 When you get to the tribal elder agreement, the chiefs, then you get the force of law and 139 0:14:48 --> 0:14:55 it becomes a perpetual contract. So it's a slightly different contract then. It's a perpetual contract. 140 0:14:55 --> 0:15:04 Money usually has no real limit, but I'll clarify that more fairly soon in regard to the two 141 0:15:04 --> 0:15:09 different types of money. And then with this term currency comes along. So currency is used to settle 142 0:15:09 --> 0:15:16 transactions and it's the flow of money. Currency is the term used when money is flowing. 143 0:15:16 --> 0:15:24 Remember, the Latin for currency comes from something that's flowing like water flowing. 144 0:15:26 --> 0:15:31 The next concept to understand is the money supply. Now, a lot of people don't understand 145 0:15:31 --> 0:15:39 that you've got to have a money supply in an economy. Money is really like water on a garden. 146 0:15:39 --> 0:15:47 Money is really like water on a garden. I explained this to people. If you don't put the water 147 0:15:47 --> 0:15:54 on the garden, the garden will die. And the money has limited quantity. It's like a dam or a tank. 148 0:15:56 --> 0:16:02 So you've got to be replenishing your money supply while you're spreading your water on your garden. 149 0:16:03 --> 0:16:10 This is an easy thing to understand. What is the money supply? Well, the money supply in the dam or 150 0:16:10 --> 0:16:16 in the tank is all the currency and other liquid instruments that's circulating in the economy on 151 0:16:16 --> 0:16:24 the date measured. And that roughly includes cash and deposits. Deposits must be easily accessed. 152 0:16:24 --> 0:16:34 So that's a simple example of money supply, cash and bank deposits. Now, cash is issued by 153 0:16:34 --> 0:16:40 governments, mostly, not by central banks, governments in most cases. And they also issue 154 0:16:40 --> 0:16:45 coins. But there can be a combination of central bank issuance and treasury issuance. 155 0:16:46 --> 0:16:53 The bank regulators can influence the supply of money, how much money goes from the tank to the 156 0:16:53 --> 0:16:59 economy. And that's very important. They usually do it by setting interest rates. But they also set 157 0:17:01 --> 0:17:07 credit limits. And they have other instruments. We won't get into the nitty gritty of how 158 0:17:07 --> 0:17:13 central banks operate tonight. So if you want to learn more about money supply, there's a link 159 0:17:13 --> 0:17:19 there I put in the presentation. And it just runs through the different types of money supply. 160 0:17:20 --> 0:17:31 And these are the terminologies that are often used. M1 plus MO is where you include currency 161 0:17:31 --> 0:17:37 notes, coins, bank reserves and demand deposits. M2 is M1 plus marketable securities and other 162 0:17:37 --> 0:17:45 less liquid bank deposits. And M3 is M2 plus money market funds. And M4 is M3 plus the least liquid 163 0:17:45 --> 0:17:51 assets. That's a rough definition of money supply. Different countries have different definitions, 164 0:17:51 --> 0:17:56 but it gives you some idea that you can actually look at the money supply in different ways. 165 0:18:00 --> 0:18:04 I can't see the top of my screen. I hope you can see it there. It says bank loans 166 0:18:04 --> 0:18:11 create fresh new money out of thin air. Yep, we can see it, Jerry. Good. Okay. Fresh new money 167 0:18:11 --> 0:18:18 out of thin air. Banks do this when they make a loan, but they can't do it by themselves. 168 0:18:19 --> 0:18:23 They've got to have a borrower. And this is really, really important concept to understand. 169 0:18:24 --> 0:18:29 By the way, you'll see the red streaks on my slide presentation. I wasn't aware they were there when 170 0:18:29 --> 0:18:37 I chose that theme. So I just excuse those red lines on the slideshow. But banks, and when I 171 0:18:37 --> 0:18:42 say banks, I mean commercial banks, or what we call retail banks. In other words, banks like 172 0:18:42 --> 0:18:46 your big, big four banks and all your smaller banks that people know about in Australia. 173 0:18:47 --> 0:18:51 They can create fresh new money out of thin air when they make a loan, but they've got to have 174 0:18:51 --> 0:18:56 a borrower. Why do they have to have a borrower? Well, because they've got to create a contract. 175 0:18:56 --> 0:19:00 It's pretty obvious when you know what I've just told you, they've got to have a contract 176 0:19:00 --> 0:19:06 between the borrower and the bank. There's a few other interesting things about banks. There's no 177 0:19:06 --> 0:19:13 such thing really as a deposit. In law, a deposit really doesn't exist. It's a loan. You've loaned 178 0:19:13 --> 0:19:20 your money to the bank and the bank has been the other side of that loan contract. Now, this gets 179 0:19:20 --> 0:19:27 complicated here. Banks don't make loans. They purchase securities. This involves the law of 180 0:19:28 --> 0:19:33 mortgage agreements. And when they do most of the loaning is to loan for homes. So 181 0:19:33 --> 0:19:39 they actually create securities and then purchase them. We won't go into that tonight either. It's 182 0:19:39 --> 0:19:47 complicated. The last sentence is very important. Bank money or credit money, money created as 183 0:19:47 --> 0:19:56 credit is destroyed when a loan is paid off. So it's dynamic. Money is dynamic. The money that 184 0:19:56 --> 0:20:02 was created 45 years ago no longer exists. Really, it can be, there's a slight variation of that theme 185 0:20:02 --> 0:20:08 too. I'll mention later, but bank money generally is destroyed when a loan is paid off. So there's a 186 0:20:08 --> 0:20:13 need to continually create more credit money as bank loans as time passes. 187 0:20:13 --> 0:20:19 The history of banking. So let's start looking at the history of banking because now we've gone 188 0:20:19 --> 0:20:23 through money. We've got to come to terms with banking. Why do we have to come to terms with 189 0:20:23 --> 0:20:28 banking? Well, the reason is this, and I'll refer to this again later. The reason is that 190 0:20:29 --> 0:20:34 in our current advanced economies of the world, not only do we have to come to terms with 191 0:20:34 --> 0:20:40 banking, but we have to come to terms with the history of banking. And that's why we have to 192 0:20:41 --> 0:20:46 come to terms with banking. In the advanced economies of the world, 98% of our money supply 193 0:20:47 --> 0:20:54 is credit money created in a bank loan. So you've got to start to understand the 194 0:20:54 --> 0:21:00 role of a bank in our economy and what happened in history in regard to banking. 195 0:21:01 --> 0:21:09 So we can go right back to Babylon, 1800 years before Christ B.C. Hammurabi, the king of Babylon, 196 0:21:09 --> 0:21:16 had four laws surrounding money and credit. You can look up the name Hammurabi. There's a thing 197 0:21:16 --> 0:21:22 called Hammurabi's Code. Some of you may have heard of that, but that's where it began. It 198 0:21:22 --> 0:21:28 came from Babylon and spread around the Middle East and then across into North Africa and then 199 0:21:28 --> 0:21:38 into Italy. And in Italy, it really started to become what we know as today as a modern banking 200 0:21:38 --> 0:21:44 system. There's a bit of an argument about did it start in Venice or Genoa, but most people agree 201 0:21:44 --> 0:21:51 that it started in Venice. If you go to Venice, it's an island. It's now connected to the mainland 202 0:21:51 --> 0:22:00 with a bridge, not quite a bridge, but a land bridge with a train track on it and a road. But 203 0:22:02 --> 0:22:08 it was previously an island in a lagoon surrounded by water. It couldn't be easily attacked. 204 0:22:09 --> 0:22:19 And the Venetians inherited the idea of banking from Babylon, and they inherited it through the 205 0:22:19 --> 0:22:26 Jews who arrived from Babylon. And they set up business. Now, in Venice, they were not allowed 206 0:22:26 --> 0:22:34 to be merchants. They were not allowed to be professionals. They were not allowed to 207 0:22:34 --> 0:22:40 be government officials. So they were very limited in what they could do. But they had the secrets 208 0:22:40 --> 0:22:45 of banking and the secrets are called the secret ledger. So they understood the secret ledger 209 0:22:45 --> 0:22:53 and double entry bank. They were allowed to live in Canareggio, which is a quarter, a small area at 210 0:22:53 --> 0:22:59 the back of Venice. It's basically the back, the boondocks down the back of Venice. They were allowed 211 0:22:59 --> 0:23:04 to live in Canareggio. They were locked in every night, usually six to seven pm, I forget the time. 212 0:23:04 --> 0:23:09 The sheriff would lock them in. They had to be in there. They were not allowed to practice their 213 0:23:09 --> 0:23:14 faith. They had secret synagogues. They're still there today. You can go and see their secret 214 0:23:14 --> 0:23:19 synagogues. But they were locked up all night. And then the sheriff would open the gates in the morning 215 0:23:19 --> 0:23:27 and they'd come out. The men would walk with their benches on their shoulders, their bench, 216 0:23:27 --> 0:23:32 and they'd carry the bench up to the Rialto Bridge. Some would set up around the Rialto Bridge, 217 0:23:33 --> 0:23:39 and the others would keep walking and they would walk up to the St. Mark's Square, 218 0:23:41 --> 0:23:48 which is the main square in Venice near the Doge's Palace and the Cathedral. They would set up their 219 0:23:48 --> 0:23:55 benches around the square with their backs to the wall. And the bankers would sit at the table. 220 0:23:56 --> 0:24:02 And in Italian, the table or the bench is called il banco. That's where the word bank came from, 221 0:24:02 --> 0:24:09 il banco. And behind the bankers would stand the escritti. The escritti were the men who wrote the 222 0:24:09 --> 0:24:15 ledgers. They kept it very difficult for people to see what they were writing because they had their 223 0:24:15 --> 0:24:21 backs to the wall. It wasn't encouraged that anybody could see the ledgers. I'm a descendant 224 0:24:21 --> 0:24:30 of the escritti in some way. My mother's maiden name is Scrivener. And Scrivener, 225 0:24:31 --> 0:24:40 the Scriveners were the escritti in England. So I am actually a descendant of an escritti. 226 0:24:40 --> 0:24:45 They had a relationship with the Doge who was the King of Venice. It renewed every two years 227 0:24:45 --> 0:24:50 because the Doge changed every two years. And they were able to just keep their arrangement 228 0:24:50 --> 0:24:55 going because the Doge would come and go every two years. And the new Doge would have to learn 229 0:24:55 --> 0:24:59 what was going on. Well, he never really learned what was going on. So Venice was a very strange 230 0:24:59 --> 0:25:06 situation where the Doge was changed every two years. And so banking was allowed to grow and 231 0:25:06 --> 0:25:12 flourish. And Venice became a very powerful trading nation with a great navy. They had 232 0:25:12 --> 0:25:18 great shipyards there, which are still there today. And that's where banking began. There were 233 0:25:18 --> 0:25:23 private banks formed from families pretty quickly. There were banking runs. They had 234 0:25:24 --> 0:25:28 runs on bank. And I mean run. They were running through the streets of Venice to get their money 235 0:25:28 --> 0:25:34 before the other depositors got there. That's where that term comes from. And Genoa also had 236 0:25:34 --> 0:25:39 a bank over in Genoa, the bank called Di San Giorgio. And that bank was established in 1406. 237 0:25:39 --> 0:25:45 It was only closed a few years ago. So it's the longest living bank that we're aware of. I think 238 0:25:45 --> 0:25:51 there may be one other bank in Banco di Siena. I think it's really cool. It might be a little bit 239 0:25:51 --> 0:25:57 older. So where did the banking go after that? Well, it spread across the water to Padua, which 240 0:25:57 --> 0:26:04 is just across Padua in Italy, across the water from Venice. Then it went to Ferrara, which is 241 0:26:04 --> 0:26:12 the town south of Padua, going west to Mantua, then to Milano, then south across the mountains 242 0:26:12 --> 0:26:20 to Florence or Firenze, across to Genoa, Siena and up to Odessa because they could travel on the sea 243 0:26:20 --> 0:26:26 to Odessa. Odessa is still very famous today because of course it's a key port in Ukraine. 244 0:26:27 --> 0:26:35 And a lot of the bankers went to Odessa and then spread up through Hamburg to the north of Germany. 245 0:26:35 --> 0:26:41 And others went over the Alps to Bavaria, Munich, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, across to Amsterdam and then 246 0:26:41 --> 0:26:47 London. That's how it all spread. The important thing that really happened happened in Florence. 247 0:26:47 --> 0:26:54 That's where the Medici family joined the state, which was then the church, with the banking 248 0:26:54 --> 0:27:02 function. So they fused banking with the state. Some of the Medici's were popes, others were bankers. 249 0:27:03 --> 0:27:05 They were very successful at what they did. 250 0:27:07 --> 0:27:11 What other central banks were formed? Well, you've got all the dates there. Sweden had 251 0:27:11 --> 0:27:19 the Riksbank in 1668, the Bank of England 1694, Scotland, Spain 1782, France 1800, 252 0:27:19 --> 0:27:25 and Netherlands 1814, Norway and Finland. So you notice Germany is not there because Germany wasn't 253 0:27:25 --> 0:27:33 a single nation. It was a fiefdom of many, many powerful families and 254 0:27:33 --> 0:27:39 and really many nation states that are really family states. 255 0:27:41 --> 0:27:44 So we go back, we've got to wonder why did all these central banks form? 256 0:27:45 --> 0:27:50 Well, there's a whole lot of reasons the central banks form because the king or the sovereign or 257 0:27:50 --> 0:27:54 the royal family needed someone to help them with their banking and to be an intermediary between 258 0:27:56 --> 0:28:01 them and the people. So that was the first thing with central banks. And then as private banks 259 0:28:01 --> 0:28:08 formed, more retail or commercial banks formed, then the central banks were invented to 260 0:28:10 --> 0:28:17 maintain trust in the banking sector, the whole sector. So it forms a very important role 261 0:28:18 --> 0:28:25 in maintaining trust. Remember, trust is the key important thing in money and in banking. 262 0:28:26 --> 0:28:31 Now you can look at life without a central bank. It's not hard to look at it. It's very 263 0:28:31 --> 0:28:36 fashionable these days to attack central banks and say they're terrible, terrible things and 264 0:28:36 --> 0:28:43 that central bankers are terrible people. But the fact is, before you reach that conclusion, 265 0:28:43 --> 0:28:50 you should look at life without a central bank. And it's very easy to do. We can look at the 19th 266 0:28:50 --> 0:28:56 century in the United States and see what happened because they had a very long period without a 267 0:28:56 --> 0:29:02 central bank. In fact, it was about 60 years, I think, from memory. I've written an article on 268 0:29:02 --> 0:29:07 that and I'll put the link up there for you. If you get these slides, you can click that link. 269 0:29:07 --> 0:29:15 And in that weekly editorial, I wrote about the failure of free banking and sound money in the 270 0:29:15 --> 0:29:22 United States and the financial mayhem in the 19th century, including the panic of 1837, 271 0:29:22 --> 0:29:27 which is a very interesting article. And I wrote it, but a lot of people like to read it. 272 0:29:27 --> 0:29:31 It opens their eyes about what life is like if you don't have a central bank. 273 0:29:31 --> 0:29:41 You get total financial chaos, basically. Now, what is our financial world that we're living in 274 0:29:41 --> 0:29:47 now? That's really important to understand because we live in an empire. And the empire 275 0:29:47 --> 0:29:53 is the U.S. dollar empire. That's what we're living in. It's very similar to the Roman Empire, 276 0:29:53 --> 0:30:01 but this empire is a currency empire. All of the U.S. military is not there to fight off enemies. 277 0:30:01 --> 0:30:11 They don't have anyone seeking to invade the U.S. It's all there to defend the dominance of the U.S. 278 0:30:11 --> 0:30:21 dollar. That's what it's all there for. Now, this all began in a meeting in July 1944 in New Hampshire 279 0:30:22 --> 0:30:27 where the Americans called all of the allies together in a little town called Bretton Woods 280 0:30:27 --> 0:30:34 in a hotel called the Bretton Woods Hotel. And that meeting was very, very important. 281 0:30:35 --> 0:30:39 In that meeting, they established some very important things which still stand today. So 282 0:30:40 --> 0:30:47 that meeting was the beginning of the U.S. dollar empire. They established an agreement that they 283 0:30:47 --> 0:30:53 would form things like the United Nations, the IMF, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, 284 0:30:53 --> 0:30:59 eventually the World Health Organization. And they agreed to use the U.S. dollar as the reserve 285 0:30:59 --> 0:31:07 currency. In other words, the currency that people would transact their international 286 0:31:08 --> 0:31:13 settlement, trade settlements in. This was pretty much railroaded through by the Americans. They 287 0:31:13 --> 0:31:21 had it all ready by July 1944, which is suspicious in itself. And so there were two major allies that 288 0:31:21 --> 0:31:28 were very, very suspicious about what the hell was going on. The war was in full flight. They were 289 0:31:28 --> 0:31:35 nowhere near the end of the war. And so two major allies said, what the hell is going on? 290 0:31:35 --> 0:31:40 And I've written on the slide there, who were they? Who were the two major allies? Well, 291 0:31:41 --> 0:31:48 I'll answer the question. They were United Kingdom and the USSR. 292 0:31:50 --> 0:31:58 Both of these allies, the two major allies, were very suspicious. The leader of the UK 293 0:31:59 --> 0:32:06 team was John Maynard Keynes. Maynard Keynes proposed a very different solution. He wanted 294 0:32:06 --> 0:32:15 an international currency to be agreed, a basket of currencies. But he had no power to drive that 295 0:32:15 --> 0:32:22 through. Somehow or other, he had a heart attack on the sixth day of the meeting. And that's also 296 0:32:22 --> 0:32:28 regarded with some suspicion. And he was never the same man again after that. He was a brilliant, 297 0:32:28 --> 0:32:35 brilliant person and was able to control lots of things, but not the outcome of the Bretton Woods 298 0:32:35 --> 0:32:45 meeting. The Russians from the USSR were immediately suspicious. They said so. They never 299 0:32:45 --> 0:32:53 ratified the agreement back in Moscow. So basically, from that moment on, Russia had 300 0:32:53 --> 0:32:59 clearly stated its case in regard to this dominance of currency of the US dollar. They knew 301 0:33:00 --> 0:33:06 what trick was being pulled. So I would call it a trick. Some people may not, but 302 0:33:07 --> 0:33:16 that's what happened. So the US dollar dominance began and it manages to persist because of the 303 0:33:16 --> 0:33:24 volume of dollars that are outside the control of the US government. And we call those dollars 304 0:33:24 --> 0:33:29 Euro dollars. It doesn't matter whether they're in Japan or Australia or Papua New Guinea. 305 0:33:29 --> 0:33:38 Any US dollar outside of the US is called a Euro dollar. Now, central banks hold many different 306 0:33:38 --> 0:33:45 currencies in different volumes. But the dominant currency they hold is the US dollar. In fact, 307 0:33:45 --> 0:33:53 it's 60% of central bank foreign exchange holdings. The next most heavily held currency is the Euro, 308 0:33:53 --> 0:33:59 which is 20% of central bank foreign exchange holdings. In other words, holdings that are 309 0:33:59 --> 0:34:10 available to settle global trade. And the important thing to understand here is that 310 0:34:10 --> 0:34:15 other major currencies such as Australian dollar, the Canadian dollar, the Chinese Yuan, 311 0:34:17 --> 0:34:24 the French franc, the Swiss franc, all make up about 2% of the remainder. So they're 2%. 312 0:34:26 --> 0:34:36 US dollar 60%. Euro 20%. Now, some people say the Euro is purely a US dollar proxy established by 313 0:34:36 --> 0:34:44 the Americans. And I tend to agree with that. And that means they have 80% of central bank 314 0:34:44 --> 0:34:52 foreign exchange holdings that are there and available to be used to settle global trade. 315 0:34:53 --> 0:34:58 So it's a very, very dominant situation. Something happened in the 1960s, which really 316 0:34:58 --> 0:35:03 cemented this. And that was the development of the Euro dollar loan market. This is where the 317 0:35:03 --> 0:35:13 tax haven banks create loans to nominated US dollars. And they loan that money mainly, 318 0:35:13 --> 0:35:22 principally, to large corporations. So this then grows the Euro dollar volume outside of America 319 0:35:22 --> 0:35:29 very much. And almost some people say it was an accident, but nonetheless, it happened. And 320 0:35:29 --> 0:35:35 the dominance of US dollar is held by two things. One is the strength of the US military, 321 0:35:36 --> 0:35:44 which enforces it. And also the sheer volume of US dollars that are outside the control of the United 322 0:35:44 --> 0:35:53 States. I think the next heading is national currency. So let's talk about what a national 323 0:35:53 --> 0:36:01 currency means. So a nation is bound by its general acceptance of a national currency. 324 0:36:02 --> 0:36:08 I would go so far as to say that a nation is its currency. Without its currency, it's really not 325 0:36:08 --> 0:36:19 a nation. So it is a tribal or group contract enforced by law with the perpetual contract. So 326 0:36:20 --> 0:36:26 it really binds people into a currency. Yes, we have a flag. Yes, we have a parliament. Yes, 327 0:36:26 --> 0:36:33 we have a judicial system. But really, deep down in the contractual agreement, it's the agreement 328 0:36:33 --> 0:36:42 to generally accept the national currency, which fuses and cements the society. The currency is 329 0:36:42 --> 0:36:48 issued by either the Treasury Department, the Central Bank or both. I've said before, Germany's 330 0:36:48 --> 0:36:53 had six national currencies in the last 100 years because of all of the events that have occurred in 331 0:36:53 --> 0:36:58 Germany. And yet they've still got a robust economy. It's quite an amazing achievement. 332 0:36:59 --> 0:37:07 Now, some central banks are privately owned. Others are 100% government owned. Most of them 333 0:37:07 --> 0:37:14 are 100% government owned. And some have got a mix of ownership. I've written another editorial 334 0:37:14 --> 0:37:19 on boom finance and economics on this subject. It's actually on the same link as the one I just 335 0:37:19 --> 0:37:26 gave previously. And that is all about who owns the central banks and the fact that you can actually 336 0:37:26 --> 0:37:34 buy shares in some central banks. Those central banks are the Bank of Japan and the Bank of Italy 337 0:37:35 --> 0:37:42 and the Swiss National Bank is three. And they're all big, big central banks. You can buy shares on 338 0:37:42 --> 0:37:46 them. They're publicly traded on the stock market, but they're not a very good investment. 339 0:37:47 --> 0:37:52 The possible exception of the Swiss shares in their central bank. But it's a shock to 340 0:37:52 --> 0:38:00 most people to realize that you can actually buy shares in these banks. The banks that are 100% 341 0:38:00 --> 0:38:07 privately owned include the United States Federal Reserve. They don't call themselves a bank. They 342 0:38:07 --> 0:38:12 call themselves the Federal Reserve. And it's privately owned. A lot of people don't realize 343 0:38:12 --> 0:38:20 that. So there's a mix of ownership. The interesting central bank that's been formed in the last 20 344 0:38:20 --> 0:38:25 years is the Bank of Russia. And it has a very interesting constitution. If you're at all 345 0:38:25 --> 0:38:32 interested, you might like to read that. The central difference between capitalism and communism 346 0:38:33 --> 0:38:41 has to be understood. In the USSR, there were no commercial banks. There were no bank ones. 347 0:38:41 --> 0:38:47 There was one bank that was the central bank of the USSR. They created the money. They spent the 348 0:38:47 --> 0:38:54 money into the economy. That is what communism at the end of the day is really all about. It's 349 0:38:54 --> 0:39:01 total and utter control of the money supply by a central bank. In our world, the central bank does 350 0:39:01 --> 0:39:07 not really control the volume of money. It tries to control the volume through inter-freight 351 0:39:07 --> 0:39:15 settings. That's basically the difference between capitalism and communism. We've got a lot to cover, 352 0:39:15 --> 0:39:20 so we won't dwell too much on banking. We've gone through a lot there on banking. The next thing 353 0:39:20 --> 0:39:25 I thought we should mention is the subject of cryptocurrencies, because everybody's confused 354 0:39:25 --> 0:39:32 about it. Cryptocurrencies are in fact digital tokens, but they're not money. They can't be 355 0:39:32 --> 0:39:36 money. If you look back at all the tests for money I just gave earlier, you'll soon learn that they 356 0:39:36 --> 0:39:42 can't be money. What is blockchain technology? It was called the chain of blocks. It was cryptographic 357 0:39:42 --> 0:39:48 technology invented in 1986-87. Then there was a paper released by the NSA, the National Security 358 0:39:48 --> 0:39:54 Agency in America in 1996. In 1996, they released this paper called How to Make a Mint, 359 0:39:54 --> 0:40:02 it's cryptography of anonymous electronic cash. Nothing happened. I read that paper within 48 360 0:40:02 --> 0:40:08 hours of it being published. A friend sent it to me. Nothing happened. Then 12 years later, 361 0:40:09 --> 0:40:15 a mysterious Japanese person called Nakamoto Satoshi, or really they called him Satoshi 362 0:40:15 --> 0:40:22 Nakamoto. He arrived and he released the Bitcoin blockchain in 2008. I'll just tell you the meaning 363 0:40:22 --> 0:40:29 of if we reverse the name Satoshi Nakamoto, it means Nakamoto Satoshi, of course. Now that in 364 0:40:29 --> 0:40:40 Chinese characters means central intelligence. The How to Make a Mint paper in 1996 was released by 365 0:40:40 --> 0:40:49 four employees of the NSA in America, the National Security Agency. Then the Bitcoin blockchain was 366 0:40:49 --> 0:40:55 released and off went the world of crypto. It reached its zenith only one year ago. It reached a 367 0:40:56 --> 0:41:00 market capitalization of $3 trillion. I wrote an editorial at that time and said, 368 0:41:00 --> 0:41:05 this will collapse below one trillion. I wrote that editorial about a year ago. 369 0:41:06 --> 0:41:08 And it has now collapsed way below one trillion. Now it's about, 370 0:41:10 --> 0:41:17 at the moment, about $820 billion of total market capitalization value of the crypto world. 371 0:41:19 --> 0:41:25 There's now 9,000 of these crypto tokens available to be traded on various exchanges around the world. 372 0:41:25 --> 0:41:28 And you can go to coinmarket.com and have a look at them all if you're interested. 373 0:41:29 --> 0:41:33 I'll just say a few more. I think I've gone the wrong way. Where are we? 374 0:41:34 --> 0:41:44 Anyone see? You're right. So I'll just. Okay, all right. I hit the wrong button. So the crypto 375 0:41:44 --> 0:41:50 world, is this money? No, I'd call these digital commodities. They don't meet the tests of being 376 0:41:50 --> 0:41:58 generally accepted in particular. So generally accepted is the digital currency. And the digital 377 0:41:58 --> 0:42:03 general acceptance is the problem here. There's a lot of other things. They really don't have 378 0:42:04 --> 0:42:12 the legal backing that currencies are supposed to have under their normal formation. 379 0:42:12 --> 0:42:16 So there really can't be currencies. They're just digital tokens. They're not much different to 380 0:42:16 --> 0:42:24 what a chip you might get at a casino. Okay, so that's the crypto world. Now we're going to 381 0:42:24 --> 0:42:28 get on to the world of CBDC. Someone might have heard of this. Central Bank Digital Currencies. 382 0:42:30 --> 0:42:36 CBDCs are the current threat that people are very worried about. But there's a few problems. 383 0:42:36 --> 0:42:41 Most central banks cannot issue a currency. It's against the law. They can't do it. They can only 384 0:42:41 --> 0:42:47 buy and sell securities or assets. They can create the assets and buy and sell them, but they can't 385 0:42:48 --> 0:42:52 issue a currency. Isn't that interesting? So most central banks cannot issue a currency by themselves. 386 0:42:53 --> 0:42:57 But one interesting exception to that, by the way, is the Bank of Russia. But that's just an 387 0:42:58 --> 0:43:04 interesting side issue. So what is the CBDC? It's supposedly a central bank digital currency. 388 0:43:05 --> 0:43:10 But we've already got a dominant digital currency. It's the US dollar. We've already got digital 389 0:43:10 --> 0:43:15 currencies. In fact, all of our currencies are now digital. And guess what? They've been digital 390 0:43:15 --> 0:43:22 since the mid 1960s. They're on the electronic bank ledgers. So we've had digital currencies for 391 0:43:23 --> 0:43:29 going on 70 years. Okay. And our current money supply is now 98% credit on those bank ledgers. 392 0:43:29 --> 0:43:38 Therefore, 98% of our money is digital already. And only 2% is cash. So 98% of our transactions 393 0:43:38 --> 0:43:43 are already being tracked on digital ledgers. And they've been tracked for many decades. So the idea 394 0:43:43 --> 0:43:47 that you, oh, shock horror, they might be able to track where I'm spending my money. Well, I'm sorry 395 0:43:47 --> 0:43:52 to tell you folks, they're already tracking 98% of your transactions and have been doing for a long 396 0:43:52 --> 0:43:59 time. Then they say, Oh, they'll be able to control where we spend money. Well, that's unlikely as 397 0:43:59 --> 0:44:04 well. Because credit ratings have existed for decades. Credit availability is already restricted. 398 0:44:04 --> 0:44:08 There's always, there's already restrictions on credit money. It's not as if you can just, 399 0:44:08 --> 0:44:19 everybody can just get access to credit money from a bank. Okay, so cash is different. Cash is 2% 400 0:44:19 --> 0:44:24 of our money supply at the moment. And it's very, very different. I won't, I can go into 401 0:44:24 --> 0:44:29 the central bank digital currency later in the question and answer session. Someone will have a 402 0:44:29 --> 0:44:34 question. Let's go on to the importance of cash. So cash is sovereign money. It's the money of the 403 0:44:34 --> 0:44:41 people. The sovereign, or the, in which case it'll be most cases, the government these days, 404 0:44:41 --> 0:44:48 sovereign will create more money in response to demand. And guess what? Such demand cannot be 405 0:44:48 --> 0:44:52 refused. If you increase your demand for cash, it has to be provided by the sovereign. 406 0:44:54 --> 0:45:00 There's some very bad consequences if the sovereign doesn't. So you can acquire cash at the bank, 407 0:45:00 --> 0:45:06 the ATMs, and you can get it at merchants. They'll often offer you cash at a merchant if you ask them. 408 0:45:07 --> 0:45:12 So we've got to boost cash back to 50% of the money supply. That's my main 409 0:45:12 --> 0:45:20 call to immediate action for you today. We've got to use cash as much as possible. It's our money. 410 0:45:20 --> 0:45:25 It's not bankers money. It doesn't generate an interest. There's no interest. It's interest free. 411 0:45:26 --> 0:45:32 It's the people's money. And we can demand it by using it. In other words, the more we use it, 412 0:45:33 --> 0:45:38 the more the demand goes up, the more the central bank or the government or the treasury 413 0:45:38 --> 0:45:45 will print the cash and send it out. You can ask merchants to give discounts for cash. This is a 414 0:45:45 --> 0:45:51 really powerful thing. If our merchants start to tweak on to the idea that they can give a 5% 415 0:45:51 --> 0:45:57 discount, if you settle with cash, that'll grow like Wi-Fi. The merchants will realize everybody 416 0:45:57 --> 0:46:02 is starting to offer a discount. You've got to start asking the merchants to give you a discount. 417 0:46:03 --> 0:46:10 This could be very powerful community action. And you've also got to use community owned banks 418 0:46:11 --> 0:46:16 instead of shareholder owned banks. That's the third key item. 419 0:46:18 --> 0:46:21 So what's a community owned banks? Well, it doesn't give pay dividends. 420 0:46:22 --> 0:46:30 It's owned mainly by, it's like a club. It's a cooperative. All of the community owned banks 421 0:46:30 --> 0:46:35 in Australia have erupted from credit unions or building societies in the past. They've now 422 0:46:36 --> 0:46:42 been granted banking license so they can create credit. They don't pay dividends. 423 0:46:43 --> 0:46:47 In Germany, 75% of all banking is done by community owned banks. There's no shareholders 424 0:46:47 --> 0:46:53 in those banks. There's no dividends paid. So they can retain the capital, the profits as capital. 425 0:46:53 --> 0:46:59 This gives them a tremendous stability. We've got quite a lot of these banks in Australia. 426 0:46:59 --> 0:47:03 You can go and check various lists. I've given you some links to lists of banks, 427 0:47:03 --> 0:47:06 but the ones that are pretty well known, Australian Military Bank, 428 0:47:06 --> 0:47:12 Auswild, Heritage Bank, Police Bank, Q Bank, QDOS Bank, RACQ Bank, there's quite a few more. 429 0:47:12 --> 0:47:18 I'd encourage you to use community owned bank. And lastly, we're going to talk about the subject 430 0:47:18 --> 0:47:26 of wealth. So what's wealth? Well, financial wealth is money trapped in assets. Okay, financial 431 0:47:26 --> 0:47:33 wealth is not currency because it's trapped. It only becomes currency when the asset changes hands. 432 0:47:34 --> 0:47:42 It changes form then from wealth into currency, and the currency is transferred back to wealth 433 0:47:42 --> 0:47:49 in a lot of circumstances. But that's not really wealth. Wealth is encompassed by our health, 434 0:47:50 --> 0:47:56 our independence, the rule of law, our freedom, an independent justice system, 435 0:47:57 --> 0:48:02 a democratic political system, strong community, strong family, strong friendships. 436 0:48:02 --> 0:48:10 That's what wealth really is. And you've got to always be thinking, we've got to understand that 437 0:48:10 --> 0:48:16 we think democracy will take care of all of this. The fact is, democracy can easily transform into 438 0:48:16 --> 0:48:24 a tyranny of the 51%. So don't just think that your democracy will guarantee your wealth, it won't. 439 0:48:25 --> 0:48:31 There is an alternative to voting systems. I'll just mention it. It's called sortition. 440 0:48:31 --> 0:48:39 That's election by lottery. We won't go on about that. So government is our collective responsibility. 441 0:48:40 --> 0:48:44 We've got a choice we've got to make today. It's all between globalism or nationalism. 442 0:48:46 --> 0:48:51 This is our big choice. Why? Because the globalists are seeking immortality for themselves, 443 0:48:52 --> 0:48:59 slavery for us. This is the choice we have to make today. What's their motivation? Well, 444 0:48:59 --> 0:49:05 they're guided by technocracy, transhumanism, and eugenics. And they're driven by the philosophy 445 0:49:05 --> 0:49:11 of utopianism. Utopianism came from Thomas More, who wrote a book called Utopia 500 years ago. 446 0:49:12 --> 0:49:17 Then Charles Fourier, a crazy Frenchman, wrote a lot of books and dreamt up a lot of ideas. 447 0:49:18 --> 0:49:23 And his ideas went forward as what's called Fourierism, and infected the world of eugenics. 448 0:49:24 --> 0:49:30 It developed into Marxism through Karl Marx. It created Mikveh Israel, the first settlement 449 0:49:30 --> 0:49:38 in Palestine called that was really the birth of Israel. It was responsible for national socialism, 450 0:49:38 --> 0:49:46 or the Nazi Party. It was responsible for communism, responsible for Zionism, or feminism. 451 0:49:46 --> 0:49:51 In fact, Charles Fourier invented the word feminist. And he also had dreams of climate 452 0:49:51 --> 0:49:54 change and wrote about climate change. And that was in the early 19th century. 453 0:49:56 --> 0:50:02 So you've got a choice, folks, freedom or slavery, globalism or nationalism. That's their choice 454 0:50:02 --> 0:50:09 today. That's just the end of the formal presentation. There's a lot of stuff there. 455 0:50:09 --> 0:50:14 I hope I haven't gone too quickly. A lot of the terms are foreign to a lot of people. 456 0:50:16 --> 0:50:23 But I think we should have some questions and we can develop a discussion. Charles? 457 0:50:23 --> 0:50:27 Beautiful. Beautiful, Gerry. Well done. Stop your sharing. 458 0:50:27 --> 0:50:32 Good. So everybody give Gerry a round of applause. Good job. 459 0:50:34 --> 0:50:39 All right, questions. Elaine Lucas, you can go first because you sent one through to me. I'm glad 460 0:50:39 --> 0:50:46 to see that you are here. And then please put your hands up for questions. One of the issues, 461 0:50:46 --> 0:50:51 Gerry, I'd like you to raise is the one that I raised earlier. Elaine Lucas, if she doesn't 462 0:50:51 --> 0:50:57 want to ask you, she asked the question, where does Australia borrow the trillion 463 0:50:57 --> 0:51:01 dollars plus of debt that is said to be owed? Where does that come from? 464 0:51:01 --> 0:51:08 That's a great question. I didn't get into that because I could speak for hours on this subject, 465 0:51:08 --> 0:51:13 so I had to sort of give you half an hour there. Australia doesn't borrow from a bank. 466 0:51:14 --> 0:51:23 It issues bonds. And the process of issuing a bond is very, very different to borrowing money 467 0:51:23 --> 0:51:29 or borrowing money from a bank. They're extremely different things. So they issue a bond. It's a 468 0:51:29 --> 0:51:38 piece of paper with a contract on it. And that contract, remember I said, money is a contract. 469 0:51:39 --> 0:51:44 They issue a paper, it's called a bond. They basically issue this to any willing investors. 470 0:51:44 --> 0:51:49 The investor invests in the piece of paper. They say, okay, I'll take that paper off you 471 0:51:49 --> 0:51:53 because I trust you're going to be there in 10 years' time. You're the government of Australia. 472 0:51:54 --> 0:52:00 And the government of Australia in that contract says, we'll pay you X percentage on the initial 473 0:52:00 --> 0:52:06 amount. And then at the 10 year, at the end of the term, the bond will, what we call, mature 474 0:52:06 --> 0:52:14 and the money will be paid back to the investor. And the investor will get income all the way 475 0:52:14 --> 0:52:21 through. So that's interest bearing money. But there is no money created when a bond is issued. 476 0:52:22 --> 0:52:27 None. The money has to come from investors' pockets with one exception. And that's when 477 0:52:27 --> 0:52:34 you do, when a central bank does what we call QE or quantitative easing. And that's a rare event. 478 0:52:34 --> 0:52:39 It doesn't happen very often where the central bank buys some government bonds, if not all of 479 0:52:39 --> 0:52:53 the government bonds. So that's an exception. So QE, which we've sort of heard of quantitative easing, 480 0:52:53 --> 0:52:59 is the exception to the rule. But usually, when a bond is issued, there's no new money invented, 481 0:53:00 --> 0:53:06 not created. So it's very, very different to a bank line. Say your government went to a bank 482 0:53:06 --> 0:53:12 and borrowed money from the bank in a bank line, then we have fresh new money. In fact, I could go 483 0:53:12 --> 0:53:18 into the reason that I think our government could do that instead of issuing bonds, but that's very 484 0:53:18 --> 0:53:26 complicated. But so we're not loaning money. We're not borrowing money as a government or a bank. 485 0:53:26 --> 0:53:31 There's a difference between a government borrower and an individual borrower. Government is an 486 0:53:31 --> 0:53:38 immortal being essentially, and can enter into very long contracts of trust, because people trust 487 0:53:38 --> 0:53:44 that it'll be there in 20 years time or 30 years time. If I borrow money off you, Charles, I'm pretty 488 0:53:44 --> 0:53:49 sure you won't be here in 30 years time or 40 years time. So you're not regarded as an immortal 489 0:53:50 --> 0:53:56 borrower. So this immortality is interesting. The contracts are written in very specific ways 490 0:53:56 --> 0:54:02 so that they both have a capital value and an interest component, and that makes them different 491 0:54:03 --> 0:54:09 for an investor. So now there's another important point. I'll just very quickly make this very great 492 0:54:11 --> 0:54:20 you'll hear often people say, oh, the debt to GDP ratio is, let's say, in Australia, it's about 40%, 493 0:54:20 --> 0:54:27 but in other countries, it's up to 100%. In Greece, 150 or 200% or 250%. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 494 0:54:27 --> 0:54:32 People say, shock, horror, we'll never pay this back. Well, there are two issues here. You don't 495 0:54:32 --> 0:54:37 have to pay it back because when as each bond matures, it could be rolled over to another set 496 0:54:37 --> 0:54:42 of investors or the current set of investors will just say, just roll it over. I'll take another 10 497 0:54:42 --> 0:54:48 years. So at maturity, the bond is just rolled over more often than not, either to the same investors 498 0:54:48 --> 0:54:52 or to another new group of investors. You can even pay all your interest on the bond by doing. 499 0:54:53 --> 0:54:59 I won't go into that, but yes, you can pay all the interest. So let's dispense with the mechanics 500 0:54:59 --> 0:55:04 and just talk about the debt to GDP ratio. People get scared about this. They ask, how many trillions 501 0:55:04 --> 0:55:11 of dollars? Oh my gosh, how are we going to do this? But it's a incorrect ratio. The debt 502 0:55:12 --> 0:55:18 is usually got around 20 years of term, maturity, and they measure it to one year of GDP. 503 0:55:18 --> 0:55:25 This is totally ridiculous. If they changed it to 20 years of GDP and compared 20 years of debt to 504 0:55:25 --> 0:55:32 20 years of GDP, then everything changes. Let's give you an example. Say we look at the US 505 0:55:33 --> 0:55:42 current government debt, which is about 30 trillion. We say, their economy is only 20 trillion. 506 0:55:42 --> 0:55:49 It's 150% of GDP. It's a terrible disaster. That's not true. If you look up there, 20 years of GDP, 507 0:55:50 --> 0:55:58 it's 400 trillion. Suddenly the ratio goes from 30 trillion compared to 20 to 30 trillion compared 508 0:55:58 --> 0:56:04 to 400 trillion. All that economic activity is going to take place while all that debt 509 0:56:04 --> 0:56:12 is being serviced. That's really important. Debt to GDP ratios mean nothing. They're badly constructed. 510 0:56:13 --> 0:56:17 There's also another thing called the velocity of money. We'll just stop there for the moment, 511 0:56:17 --> 0:56:24 Jerry, because I want this to be reasonably tight one hour or so rather than... Okay, well, 512 0:56:24 --> 0:56:29 that's enough on that. I mean, I can go. The next question is, what does someone do? 513 0:56:29 --> 0:56:35 They're sitting on a piece of land. We're living in pretty interesting times. Today, that property 514 0:56:35 --> 0:56:45 is worth $2 million unencumbered. You're not giving advice here. What are the factors that 515 0:56:45 --> 0:56:50 someone like that should take into account? Well, should I sit on this land? If there's a 516 0:56:50 --> 0:56:56 depopulation agenda, it might only be worth a million dollars. What are some of the factors 517 0:56:56 --> 0:57:01 that people should take into account on that thinking? Well, I think that if you go back over 518 0:57:01 --> 0:57:08 the presentation I've just made, you'll see the centrality of housing in our money supply system. 519 0:57:08 --> 0:57:15 It's the biggest credit money created in a bank loan is there money created as bank loans or 520 0:57:16 --> 0:57:22 with mortgages attached for houses. So it's got a centrality to our financial system, 521 0:57:22 --> 0:57:26 is the house. And it's important because we have to live somewhere into the day. So 522 0:57:28 --> 0:57:36 that centrality of the house in the mortgage loan origination process should give you some idea 523 0:57:37 --> 0:57:42 of its importance as it looked at the whole financial system. So where else can you invest? 524 0:57:42 --> 0:57:47 Well, basically you can keep money in cash. You can invest in commodities. 525 0:57:48 --> 0:57:57 You can invest in property, real assets, or you can invest in stocks. So if you sell a house and 526 0:57:57 --> 0:58:01 end up with a whole pile of cash, you've got to decide what your asset allocation is going to be 527 0:58:01 --> 0:58:12 from that day on. And you've just stepped away from the biggest, most dominant part of your 528 0:58:12 --> 0:58:20 financial system. You've stepped out of it. So I don't generally, I mean, I think that's a very 529 0:58:20 --> 0:58:24 important decision to be made. And then you've got to be really careful about your asset allocation 530 0:58:24 --> 0:58:31 against all the other investment possibilities. But I tell people, look, asset allocation is very 531 0:58:31 --> 0:58:35 important. You've got to work out how much cash you're going to hold, how much property you're 532 0:58:35 --> 0:58:43 going to hold, what your home is in that mix, how many stocks you may own, how many bonds you may 533 0:58:43 --> 0:58:50 own, or you may like to own some commodities. There's a whole range of other assets you can 534 0:58:50 --> 0:58:56 buy, but that's called asset allocation. And that's very, very important thing. And if you want to be 535 0:58:56 --> 0:59:02 safe, you can just split it up into the same all across. The problem we've got is our houses 536 0:59:02 --> 0:59:08 are the biggest asset we own, and we've got to live something. But it's got its centrality 537 0:59:08 --> 0:59:11 buried in our creation of money. So that's an important thing to consider. 538 0:59:13 --> 0:59:16 That's all I'd want to say on that. I think you've got to sort of make up your mind about 539 0:59:16 --> 0:59:25 that centrality. And okay, so the next one, Gerry, is with cash and money. Your advice was we should 540 0:59:25 --> 0:59:31 all be pushing to use money. And you've heard me and those on phone have heard me say I use cash as 541 0:59:31 --> 0:59:37 often as possible. I tell young people, I tell young people, I give them cash, always use cash, 542 0:59:37 --> 0:59:43 and I smile at them, I look them in the eye. I'm surprised how many young people realize this. So 543 0:59:43 --> 0:59:52 what's the threat? What are the dangers, someone asks, of getting rid of legal tender and digitizing, 544 0:59:52 --> 0:59:58 you know, the whole economy, Gerry? And you said let's go to 50% cash. Well, what's the consequences, 545 0:59:58 --> 1:00:04 you know, if we get rid of cash? Great question, Charles, we actually have to get rid of physical 546 1:00:04 --> 1:00:09 cash, because we need electronic cash. And we desperately need it, because our working 547 1:00:09 --> 1:00:15 age populations in the Western world are all in decline. Therefore, our borrowing numbers are in 548 1:00:15 --> 1:00:20 decline. The number of borrowers coming forward to create fresh new money with bank loans is in 549 1:00:20 --> 1:00:26 decline. And this is the case for every advanced economy in the world, including China, is only one 550 1:00:26 --> 1:00:31 continent that is not in this situation, and that's Africa. So we've all got a problem. 551 1:00:31 --> 1:00:35 What is what? We're running out of borrowers. And the reason we're running out of borrowers 552 1:00:35 --> 1:00:40 because of the demographics. And that's what created not completely, but it was the beginning 553 1:00:40 --> 1:00:45 of the financial crash of 2008. We essentially ran out of borrowers. There are a lot of reasons 554 1:00:45 --> 1:00:50 why, but just concentrate on the working age population decline. That's really, really important. 555 1:00:50 --> 1:01:01 Now, we need to get the cash component back up, because cash is a form of money that generates a 556 1:01:01 --> 1:01:08 lot of stability in an economy. If you think back to the 90s and 50s and 60s, they were very stable 557 1:01:08 --> 1:01:14 economies. Why? Because there was so much cash in circulation. And in comparison to credit, it was 558 1:01:14 --> 1:01:20 dominant. So if we can get cash back up, we'll end up with a much more stable economy. It's 559 1:01:20 --> 1:01:26 really, really important. Please note that if we get the cash percentage up out of the whole 560 1:01:26 --> 1:01:34 money supply, the economy becomes more stable. Less inflation cycles, it's much more stable. 561 1:01:34 --> 1:01:43 So very important point. Now, if we got demand up enough, we could just do that with physical 562 1:01:43 --> 1:01:47 cash, but it would be just about impossible. Everyone's used to just waving the plastic. 563 1:01:48 --> 1:01:53 So I think there's a very important element here. We need to create electronic cash. 564 1:01:54 --> 1:02:02 And I think the central banks are trying to stop it, because banking sector makes zero profit out 565 1:02:02 --> 1:02:08 of cash. Nothing. They've got 98% of the money creation. They don't want to see it go down. 566 1:02:08 --> 1:02:15 So I think the whole scare campaign about central bank digital currencies is being created by the 567 1:02:15 --> 1:02:19 central banks themselves. And there are two very important speeches that you've got to watch 568 1:02:20 --> 1:02:26 to understand that one was made by Christine Lagarde in 2018 in Singapore. The other one is 569 1:02:26 --> 1:02:30 made by Augustine Carstens, the head of the Bank of International Settlements, where they basically 570 1:02:30 --> 1:02:35 just said, we're going to bring in social credit, we're going to control this, we're going to, 571 1:02:35 --> 1:02:41 they actually came out and it's clear as a bell, they wanted to scare the pants off everybody 572 1:02:42 --> 1:02:47 about electronic cash, but they called it CBDC, central bank digital currencies. 573 1:02:49 --> 1:02:54 They've actually been so successful at this in the last four years. We've got people almost 574 1:02:54 --> 1:03:02 marching up and down the street demanding that electronic cash not be created. We should be 575 1:03:02 --> 1:03:08 marching up and down the street demanding the creation of electronic cash. It's really 576 1:03:08 --> 1:03:13 bizarre what has happened, but they've been very successful. That's my gut feeling about the whole 577 1:03:13 --> 1:03:21 CBD fiasco. It's another fear and control process launched by the central banks themselves. And if 578 1:03:21 --> 1:03:26 you doubt me, go and watch Christine Lagarde's speech in 2018 in Singapore. It is the most bizarre 579 1:03:26 --> 1:03:33 speech a central bank has ever made. Okay, beautiful. Thank you, Gerry. We've got John O'Connor 580 1:03:33 --> 1:03:37 and we'll finish in a couple of minutes so that people can plan their lives because we said this 581 1:03:37 --> 1:03:44 was going for one hour. Gerry's got work to do to save the world from scams and a wife who wants him. 582 1:03:44 --> 1:03:53 John? Gerry, just one question. I'm just so behind in the financial field, but when you say digital 583 1:03:53 --> 1:04:01 cash, does that mean that that digital cash would be tied to a commodity base like gold or silver? 584 1:04:01 --> 1:04:08 Is that what you're saying? No, no, no. That's called sound money. If you read my editorial on 585 1:04:08 --> 1:04:15 the failure of sound money in the 19th century in the United States, you then realize that that's the 586 1:04:15 --> 1:04:22 absolute disaster. Backing currencies with things like gold is a disaster. The British abandoned the 587 1:04:22 --> 1:04:29 gold standard in 1931 and they were the dominant currency then. They were the reserve currency. 588 1:04:29 --> 1:04:34 The pound was the settlement currency, the sterling. The Americans took over that reserve 589 1:04:34 --> 1:04:41 currency status and didn't abandon the gold backing until 1971. It took them 40 years to work out the 590 1:04:41 --> 1:04:48 disaster it was causing because if you tie it to something like gold, your issuance of currency, 591 1:04:48 --> 1:04:55 then you've got to find a very clever committee to continually value the price of the currency 592 1:04:55 --> 1:05:00 against gold. In other words, to value gold. What's gold's value? Well, very questionable. 593 1:05:00 --> 1:05:07 The other thing it generates is nations, when there was gold as a central component of their money 594 1:05:07 --> 1:05:13 and backing, they stole gold. What do you think Spain did in South America? They went there and 595 1:05:13 --> 1:05:20 stole the gold. They murdered and mayhem and stole as much gold as they could. Gold is a really 596 1:05:21 --> 1:05:29 poor thing to do with backing currency. You can't expand your economy. You've got to find 597 1:05:29 --> 1:05:34 this very clever committee of economists. I haven't been able to find one yet, the Atlanta committee 598 1:05:34 --> 1:05:45 often, to set the price of gold. It's just clunky. It doesn't work. All the people who propose it 599 1:05:45 --> 1:05:49 just tell the same lie over and over again. They say the US dollar will collapse. 600 1:05:51 --> 1:05:57 Gold will skyrocket in value and price. Well, look, there are people who have been writing that 601 1:05:57 --> 1:06:02 article for 30 years. They write the same article over and over and over again. I've watched the 602 1:06:02 --> 1:06:08 articles. They never vary and they're never right. They're never right. If you get on the internet 603 1:06:08 --> 1:06:15 today, you will be bombarded with those articles about the glories of the gold backing of currencies. 604 1:06:15 --> 1:06:22 It's ridiculous. The fiat currency system we've got is possibly the most marvelous invention of 605 1:06:22 --> 1:06:28 mankind. It's allowed us to create this huge complexity in our economy. We've got jumbo jets. 606 1:06:28 --> 1:06:35 We've got MRI scanners. We've all got beautiful cars that are air conditioned to drive around with. 607 1:06:36 --> 1:06:42 Our economies are living in nice homes. The complexity is wonderful and that complexity 608 1:06:42 --> 1:06:47 sprung from the creation of credit that's not backed by gold. I think that's just a 609 1:06:48 --> 1:06:50 bit of a con, the whole gold thing. I don't think it's worth it. 610 1:06:50 --> 1:06:56 All right. Last question. What's the difference between a community bank and a credit union? 611 1:06:58 --> 1:07:02 Good question. A lot of our credit unions have become community banks. They've been given 612 1:07:02 --> 1:07:07 banking licenses. When they were just credit unions or billing societies, they could only 613 1:07:08 --> 1:07:13 loan their savings. In other words, the savings of their depositors. As soon as you change into a 614 1:07:13 --> 1:07:19 bank, you don't loan the money that you've been given as a deposit. You actually create fresh new 615 1:07:19 --> 1:07:26 money in a loan. The banking license is that. It's the ability to create credit money over and above 616 1:07:26 --> 1:07:32 any deposit money that may be there. Credit unions are good and billing societies are good, 617 1:07:32 --> 1:07:39 but they are not good in terms of growing the complexity and size of your economy 618 1:07:39 --> 1:07:45 because they're limited. It's the same thing as limiting your money supply to gold. It's not 619 1:07:45 --> 1:07:51 much different. You're limited. That's why our credit unions have become transformed into banks 620 1:07:51 --> 1:07:56 in the last 10, 12 years or so. Beautiful. Sorry, Charles. 621 1:07:56 --> 1:08:09 Yep. The spread or the allocation of assets, I enjoy reading James Rickards. He, through history, 622 1:08:09 --> 1:08:15 he said if you had $10 million, this is the allocation that he would recommend. He followed 623 1:08:15 --> 1:08:21 the wealth of European families over the last 900 years through socialism and terrorism and blah, 624 1:08:21 --> 1:08:28 blah, blah. One idea that stuck in my mind, Gerry, was the value of fine art, museum quality, 625 1:08:28 --> 1:08:34 because you can cut the picture out of your wall, put it into a tube, and walk over the mountains 626 1:08:34 --> 1:08:40 like sound of music carrying millions of dollars of artwork. Anyway, here it is, everybody. 627 1:08:40 --> 1:08:50 Physical gold and silver, 10%. Cash, 30%. Real estate, 20%. Fine art, he said fine art fund, 628 1:08:52 --> 1:09:01 5%. Angel and early venture capital, 10%. Hedge funds, 5%. Bonds that Gerry talked about, 10%. 629 1:09:01 --> 1:09:06 And stocks, 10%. There you are. That's an example of an allocation by a guy who's, 630 1:09:07 --> 1:09:12 you know, a lot of people watch him around the world. Gerry, last words from you? 631 1:09:12 --> 1:09:16 I do want to talk about Jim Rickards. He's the man I'm referring to. For 30 years, 632 1:09:16 --> 1:09:19 he's written the same article over and over and over. 633 1:09:19 --> 1:09:24 Hey, how brilliant is that? I wish I had a genius. 634 1:09:25 --> 1:09:33 His article is The US Dollar Will Collapse and Gold Will Skyrocket. I first read his article 635 1:09:33 --> 1:09:40 saying that in the early 1990s. It's 30 years ago. He has never changed. He sells books. He 636 1:09:40 --> 1:09:47 sells conferences. He sells newsletters. The whole thing is just a great fiasco of mistruths. 637 1:09:49 --> 1:09:54 In fact, the whole Austrian School of Economics, which he's part of, is sound money people. 638 1:09:54 --> 1:09:57 Quite frankly, it's all a misinformation program. 639 1:09:57 --> 1:10:02 So isn't that wonderful, everybody? This is like moderating a meeting of doctors, 640 1:10:02 --> 1:10:07 having a debate about various matters. So everybody, please note. But I think the fact 641 1:10:07 --> 1:10:13 that you are here, those who are watching a recording of this, Gerry, you've given us a 642 1:10:13 --> 1:10:20 snippet. You've given us resources to learn from. Your advice is that we must keep learning. Stop, 643 1:10:20 --> 1:10:25 you know, stop being surprised about it because what we're dealing with here is complex issues, 644 1:10:25 --> 1:10:28 and you can't hope to master it without learning. 645 1:10:29 --> 1:10:34 No, that's right. I'd encourage everybody to get the slides I put up today just to get started. 646 1:10:34 --> 1:10:39 You've got to start reading. I mean, it's taken me to get to my level of knowledge in this area. 647 1:10:39 --> 1:10:47 It's a very, very heavy commitment of learning over at least 20 years. The central bankers 648 1:10:47 --> 1:10:52 read my stuff. The chief economic advisors read it. It's quite amazing. And I'll just tell you a 649 1:10:52 --> 1:10:57 little story there. One of my very good friends in the world of finance is a very famous fund 650 1:10:57 --> 1:11:02 manager, possibly one of the most famous of all. Lovely man. I know him very well. He's always 651 1:11:02 --> 1:11:08 managed 30, 50 billion. But he's the same age as me. So we're very similar in our whole life, 652 1:11:08 --> 1:11:12 what's happening at large and all sorts of things. But we meet on a regular basis. Usually we have 653 1:11:12 --> 1:11:19 lunch. I won't say where, but somewhere in the world. And every time we talk all about what's 654 1:11:19 --> 1:11:23 happening, you know, what do you think here? What does this lunch goes on for three hours, 655 1:11:23 --> 1:11:27 backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. Okay. And last time I was with him, I said, 656 1:11:28 --> 1:11:33 I want to ask you, why do they read boom? Because he knows a lot of central bankers. 657 1:11:33 --> 1:11:37 Oh, he said, they read boom because they can't read it anywhere else. 658 1:11:38 --> 1:11:45 In other words, I'm giving the world of finance a viewpoint, which they really can't get anywhere 659 1:11:45 --> 1:11:50 else. And the reason they can't is because they lose their jobs if they started promulgating a 660 1:11:50 --> 1:11:54 lot of the stuff I talk about. The world of economics and finance is a religion. 661 1:11:56 --> 1:12:01 They're archbishops in that religion. And so they sneak every Sunday morning, 662 1:12:01 --> 1:12:08 they sneak a look at boom and read. So that's what he said to me. And believe me, he does know 663 1:12:08 --> 1:12:14 what he's talking about this man. And you're getting good feedback from people who give you 664 1:12:14 --> 1:12:18 perspective. So next week you add to that. So it's very good. Jerry, we're going to go. 665 1:12:19 --> 1:12:23 One very last thing. The other question he always asked me at the end of every lunch, 666 1:12:23 --> 1:12:30 he says, Jerry, come on, how many euro dollars exist? And you know why he always asks this last 667 1:12:30 --> 1:12:38 question. And do you know why? Why whose? Nobody knows. The tax haven banks won't show you their 668 1:12:38 --> 1:12:46 ledges. So we have to try and work it out through, let's say, surreptitious means as to what the value 669 1:12:46 --> 1:12:51 is. So we always finish our lunch with a discussion of what do you think? And I give my number, 670 1:12:51 --> 1:12:58 he gives his number. I've been here for years and he keeps coming up all the time. But I think I 671 1:12:58 --> 1:13:02 know the answer to that question, but I'm not prepared to say it on a public meeting. 672 1:13:03 --> 1:13:08 Very good. Well, Jerry, we might have to cut off that bit about Jim Rickards. It might be a little 673 1:13:08 --> 1:13:13 bit. No, that's that's that's that we want to make you famous through controversy. That's the way. 674 1:13:13 --> 1:13:16 Oh, I don't I don't seek fame, no fame at all. 675 1:13:18 --> 1:13:24 We'll sing you a song. Fame. I'm going to live forever. OK, thank you all for being a good 676 1:13:24 --> 1:13:31 audience. Everybody. Thank you, Jerry. We have this recording will be available for you all. 677 1:13:31 --> 1:13:36 We share it with the phone link and then you can share it with others. Please. It's designed to be 678 1:13:36 --> 1:13:41 shared with others so that the knowledge around money increases. So thank you, Jerry. Thank you 679 1:13:41 --> 1:13:46 for being here, everybody. And we'll see you on Friday at the next meeting and we'll stop the 680 1:13:46 --> 1:13:47 recording.